Republican Party of Iowa leaders continue to promote the Big Lie that fueled last month’s attempted coup in Washington, DC.

State party chair Jeff Kaufmann adopts the more subtle approach favored by Governor Kim Reynolds and Iowa’s U.S. senators, claiming that “fraud” and “irregularities” need fixing in some states where voters preferred Joe Biden. Republican National Committeewoman Tamara Scott, who serves on the Iowa GOP’s State Central Committee, expressly claims the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.

Iowa lawmakers went home for the year on May 5. In the coming weeks, Bleeding Heartland will catch up on some of the legislature’s significant work that attracted relatively little attention.

Two proposed state constitutional amendments passed both chambers and could appear on the 2020 general election ballot, if the House and Senate approve them in the same form during either 2019 or 2020.

Three other constitutional amendments cleared one chamber in 2017–in one case unanimously–then stalled in the other chamber as lawmakers completed this two-year session. Those ideas may resurface next year. But since changes to the state constitution must be passed by two consecutively elected legislatures before landing on the general election ballot (the last step in the process), Iowa voters would not be able to ratify those proposals until November 2022 at the earliest.

Dr. Christopher Peters may soon have a Republican primary rival in Iowa’s second Congressional district. Multiple sources tell Bleeding Heartland that Ginny Caligiuri has been laying the groundwork to seek the GOP nomination and plans to have petitions out for activists to sign at the Republican Party of Iowa’s precinct caucuses on February 5. At this writing, the Federal Election Commission’s website has not published any statement of organization for a Caligiuri campaign. The would-be candidate has not replied to requests for comment.

Caligiuri is well-known in Iowa Christian conservative circles, having served as state director for the United States National Prayer Council, the Iowa Prayer Caucus, and National Governors’ Prayer Team. She’s on the committee planning this year’s Iowa Prayer Breakfast in March.

Melissa Gesing reached her limit this week. Four days after a 2005 video showed Donald Trump telling a reporter he could “do anything” to women, two days after Trump insisted in the second presidential debate that those comments were merely “locker room talk,” Gesing stepped down as president of the Iowa Federation of Republican Women. In her October 11 resignation letter, she described her move as a “last resort,” saying she can’t “look at myself in the mirror each morning if I do not take a stand against the racism, sexism, and hate that Donald J. Trump continues to promote.” She explained her decision at greater length in a blog post called “Ending this bad and unhealthy relationship.”

So far, no other woman in the top echelon of Iowa Republican politics has jumped ship. The Iowa Federation of Republican Women named a new president today and restated its support for the Trump-Pence ticket.

But how long can that last, with more women coming forward every day to say Trump kissed or groped them without consent, and used his position of power to walk in on women or underage girls undressed?

Three of the seven Iowa Supreme Court justices who concurred in the historic Varnum v Brien ruling on marriage equality lost their jobs in the 2010 judicial retention elections. A fourth survived a similar campaign against retaining him in 2012.

The last three Varnum justices, including the author of the unanimous opinion striking down our state’s Defense of Marriage Act, will appear on Iowa ballots this November. At this writing, no one seems to be organizing any effort to vote them off the bench. Iowa’s anti-retention campaigns in 2010 and 2012 were well under way by the end of August, but the social conservatives who spearheaded those efforts have shown no interest in repeating the experience.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

The Republican Party of Iowa finished all party business at yesterday’s state convention in under six hours. (For comparison, all four of the Iowa Democratic Party’s district conventions lasted more than twice as long.) You’d never guess that a candidate not named Donald Trump won the Iowa Republican caucuses in February, or that his supporters dominated the four GOP district conventions last month. State party chair Jeff Kaufmann assured journalists that the project of uniting the party was well underway after a sometimes bitter primary season.

During their speeches to convention delegates, Governor Terry Branstad said, “We need to support Donald Trump and his choice for vice president because he will make America great again.” Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds echoed the call to stand united against Democrats. As O.Kay Henderson reported for Radio Iowa, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst didn’t mention Trump’s name but argued, “We’ve got to come together, because you know what my motto is going to be this year? Never Hillary! Never!” A massive wall display symbolized the delegates’ commitment to “Stop Hillary” from becoming president.

Representative Steve King, who said a few days ago that he is “not ready” to endorse Trump yet, left little doubt yesterday that he will be able to do so by the time of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

The at-large slate of RNC delegates chosen yesterday included Branstad, Reynolds, King, and Bob Vander Plaats, who like King was a high-profile endorser of Ted Cruz before the caucuses. Vander Plaats and Trump had a big dustup on Twitter in January. This week, Vander Plaats told Neil Cavuto of Fox News that he recently met one-on-one with Trump, adding that there was “no endorsement” but that the two men had a “good conversation.”

At least a handful of #NeverTrump types, such as conservative blogger Shane Vander Hart, were among the more than 1550 delegates at yesterday’s state convention, but they did not make their presence known in any organized or vocal way.

The party platform debate proceeded briskly, with no big floor fights. Planks approved by voice vote included one that would eliminate more than a half-dozen federal agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration along with the long-hated-by-Republicans Internal Revenue Service, Environmental Protection Agency, and Department of Education. The Des Moines Register’s Jason Noble highlighted some platform planks that are at odds with Trump’s positions.

Some Iowa GOP conventions have involved intense battles over electing the man and woman to represent our state on the Republican National Committee. However, Tamara Scott was unopposed yesterday for re-election, and Steve Scheffler easily outpolled his little-known opponent David Dicks, a homeschooling dad from Des Moines.

Speaking of Scheffler, how about that guy’s survival skills? The founder of the Iowa Christian Alliance, whom conservative talk radio host Steve Deace has called the “least trustworthy & most gutless person in Iowa politics,” was first elected as RNC committeeman in 2008. His victory over a legend of the Iowa Republican establishment was seen as a sign the Iowa GOP was moving to the right. Scheffler held on as RNC committeeman in 2012 amid the takeover of Iowa GOP machinery by Ron Paul supporters, winning a spot on their approved delegate slate. (Craig Robinson described here how Scheffler did “a 180” on Paul.) The “Paulinista” faction was mostly swept away in 2014, but Scheffler is still standing.

His ability to align himself with establishment figures goes back a long way. Scheffler first made a name for himself as a “lead organizer” for Pat Robertson before the 1988 Iowa caucuses. Robertson’s second-place finish in that contest shocked the political world. Scheffler went on to become a prominent Christian Coalition activist but disappointed some allies in social conservative circles by endorsing Bob Dole before the 1996 caucuses. As head of the Iowa Christian Alliance in 2007, Scheffler did not endorse a presidential candidate but “often spoke highly” of Mitt Romney (see here) and “was accused of trying to undermine Mike Huckabee’s campaign,” which had much more support among Iowa evangelicals at that time. I’ve posted more background on Scheffler below.

UPDATE: Every Iowa Republican who has endorsed Trump should be asked about this article by David Cay Johnston: “Just What Were Donald Trump’s Ties to the Mob?” Johnston won a Pulitzer prize in 2001 for his reporting on loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

I just caught up on some recent remarks by Iowa’s Republican National Committeewoman Tamara Scott. In addition to representing Iowa on the RNC, Scott lobbies the state legislature on behalf of Bob Vander Plaats’ FAMiLY Leader organization and leads the Iowa chapter of Concerned Women for America, an influential group on the religious right. She was speaking at the FAMiLY Leader’s southeast regional summit on April 9, an event four potential GOP presidential candidates attended. Scott used the Wiccan invocation that stirred controversy in the Iowa House to make a case for more public expressions of Christianity, including teaching the country’s dominant religion in public schools. (Scott has frequently advocated school prayer and alleged that various societal problems stem from removing Christian prayers from public schools during the 1970s.) Miranda Blue covered the FAMiLY Leader regional summit speech for Right Wing Watch; some excerpts are after the jump. For video of all speeches from the regional summit, click here.

I am continually struck by how clueless social conservatives are about the separation of church and state. Though Scott does not acknowledge this legal reality, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from promoting any specific religious viewpoint. Every time a prominent Republican demands more government expressions and endorsements of Christianity, they are driving away Jews and probably members of other minority religious groups too, not to mention the growing number of Americans who do not identify with any religion.

In a fantastic column for the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Lynda Waddington offers her own Christian perspective on Scott’s prayer for a storm to disrupt the Wiccan invocation. I’ve enclosed excerpts below, but you should click through to read the whole piece. All I can say is, that Cabot witch sure demonstrated some amazing powers.

The Republican Party of Iowa’s former executive director Steve Bierfeldt is not helping new leaders gain access to “the party’s social media accounts, email lists, voter rolls email accounts, donor lists and even online access to the bank account.” On July 4, the Des Moines Register’s Jennifer Jacobs highlighted the lack of new posts on the Iowa GOP’s official website and Facebook and Twitter accounts. I had noticed the party’s lack of activity on social media but did not imagine new leaders were literally locked out. At this writing, the Iowa GOP twitter account is back in service, but the most recent Facebook post is still dated June 13.

The party’s new executive director, Chad Olsen, repeatedly asked Bierfeldt for help with passwords in e-mails quoted by Jacobs. This morning, the conservative blog Caffeinated Thoughts quoted Olsen as saying, “We are making progress on our own, directly with individual companies, which can be a slow and deliberate process.  The previous executive director (Steve Bierfeldt) still has not provided any additional information….”

Bierfeldt joined the Iowa GOP’s staff shortly after Ron Paul loyalists gained most party leadership positions in 2012. He agreed in May of this year to resign effective June 14, when the Iowa GOP’s new State Central Committee would take control. One of Iowa’s representatives on the Republican National Committee, Tamara Scott, hinted during a contentious State Central Committee meeting on June 28 that ousted state party chair Danny Carroll was working on a “peaceable and professional” exit strategy for Bierfeldt, “something you want when your E.D. has your passwords, your files and your database and is the architect of your upcoming state convention.” Bierfeldt apparently told Olsen last week that “he’d been told to delete all of the Iowa GOP files on his computer, so he no longer had the spreadsheet with all the passwords.”

I’ve been downsized, so I empathize with feeling frustrated after losing a good job. But to sabotage your successor’s work is incredibly immature and unprofessional. Bierfeldt should not be able to get another political or campaign job after this episode. Nevertheless, my money’s on someone bringing him on board with the Rand Paul presidential campaign, or perhaps some PAC affiliated with Paul or the “Liberty” movement.

UPDATE: Added more details below. The longer this drags on, the worse Bierfeldt looks.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 today in favor of Hobby Lobby’s right not to provide contraception coverage in its health insurance package for employees. The Obama administration had already exempted some religious organizations and non-profits from the contraception mandate in the 2010 health care reform law. Today’s ruling allows a closely-held (that is, not publicly traded) for-profit corporation to claim religious rights that override the rights of their employees, not to mention the need to comply with federal law.

You can read the full text of the Supreme Court’s decision and dissents here (pdf). Justice Samuel Alito wrote the “opinion of the court,” joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Anthony Kennedy. Strangely, Kennedy wrote a separate concurring opinion “in an attempt to show how narrow the Court’s decision was.” Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Stephen Breyer dissented. The majority ruling appears to apply only to contraception health care services, as opposed to other medical procedures to which some groups have religious objections (such as vaccinations or blood transfusions). Still, Ginsburg seems on track when she warns that the court “has ventured into a minefield” by “approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation.” Analyzing today’s decision, Lyle Denniston predicted more litigation will be needed to clarify the limits of the new religious exemption for closely-held companies.

For background on the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case (formerly Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius) and the implications of the ruling, check the Alliance for Justice and SCOTUSblog websites.

After the jump I’ve posted comments from various Iowa elected officials and candidates. So far Iowa Democrats have been quicker to respond to the Hobby Lobby ruling than Republicans. I will update this post as needed.

The Republican Party of Iowa’s State Central Committee convened today to choose a successor to A.J. Spiker, who resigned as state party chair to work for U.S. Senator Rand Paul’s RandPAC. Danny Carroll, who became party co-chair in February, was the only person nominated for the chairman’s job. Carroll is a well-known social conservative and lobbyist for Bob Vander Plaats’ FAMiLY Leader organization. He served four terms in the Iowa House before losing his seat to Eric Palmer in 2006, then losing a rematch against Palmer in 2008. In 2010, he was a leading supporter of Vander Plaats’ gubernatorial campaign and famously vowed never to vote for Terry Branstad. Earlier this year Carroll told Radio Iowa that he and the governor have a “cordial” working relationship.

According to Kevin Hall’s liveblog of today’s proceedings, seven of the eighteen State Central Committee members abstained from the vote on Carroll. Later, an Iowa GOP press release indicated that there were no dissenting votes on Carroll’s nomination, prompting several members to tell the Des Moines Register that they inadvertently voted yes on Carroll, “mistakenly thinking they were casting a vote to close nominations and move to ballots.” Hall also argued that it was inappropriate for Iowa RNC Committeewoman Tamara Scott to nominate Carroll, since she and he are both paid lobbyists for the FAMiLY Leader.

Shortly after Carroll’s election, State Central Committee member Gopal Krishna was the only candidate nominated for state party co-chair. He has previously served as party treasurer, and he and Carroll both sought the position of party chair in early 2009. At that time the State Central Committee preferred Matt Strawn.

Carroll and Krishna may not remain in their new jobs for long, since a new Iowa GOP State Central Committee will be elected later this spring. UPDATE: Radio Iowa’s O.Kay Henderson posted audio and highlights from Carroll’s press conference on March 29. He confirmed that he will seek to stay on as party chair after the new State Central Committee takes over.

Iowa House Republican Julian Garrett will face former Iowa House Democrat Mark Davitt in the November 19 special election to represent Iowa Senate district 13. The district covers Madison County and most of Warren County. State Senator Kent Sorenson resigned earlier this month, forcing a special election to fill the vacant seat. The winner will be up for re-election in 2014.

Senate district 13 is a must-hold for the GOP if they want to win a Senate majority in 2014. For that reason, many state party leaders and several Iowa Senate Republicans attended the nominating convention on October 17. Garrett went into the convention as the only announced candidate and easily won the nomination on the first ballot. Kevin Hall liveblogged the event for The Iowa Republican. I expected at least one far-right Republican to compete for the nomination, but I was surprised to learn that delegates nominated three alternatives to Garrett. Unsuccessful 2012 Iowa House candidate Steve McCoy was an obvious choice, but I wouldn’t have guessed that Republican National Committeewoman Tamara Scott would run for the Iowa Senate. I’d never heard of the third candidate, David Keagle, and I couldn’t find much information about him, other than his past donation to former Iowa House Republican Glen Massie.

Democratic delegates nominated Davitt at a special Senate district 13 convention last night. This race will be an uphill climb; as of October 1, the district contained 13,293 registered Democrats, 15,013 Republicans, and 15,909 no-party voters. That said, upsets can happen in a low-turnout environment. McCoy spoke harshly of the GOP establishment during the nominating convention. If from tea party Republicans stay home on November 19, hoping to nominate one of their own in the primary next June, strong GOTV could win it for Davitt.  

After the jump I’ve posted Garrett’s official bio, a Senate Democrats press release containing background on Davitt, and a map of Senate district 13. Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? Rand Paul was in Cedar Rapids on Friday to headline the Republican Party of Iowa’s spring fundraiser. Links and highlights are after the jump. Nothing I read convinced me that Paul has any chance of becoming president someday, but count on him to try.

Speaking of Rand, did you know that he was never board-certified? I learned that recently from an ophthalmologist and eye surgeon. After I mentioned that Iowa Department of Public Health Director Mariannette Miller-Meeks is also an ophthalmologist, she looked up Miller-Meeks in the academy database and commented, “She’s well-trained.” Miller-Meeks did her residency at the University of Iowa and a fellowship at the University of Michigan. She is board-certified and was re-certified about ten years ago.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. In previous years I’ve posted Mother’s Day links here, here, and here. Best wishes to those who celebrate today, and healing thoughts to those who grieve on Mother’s Day.

The FAMiLY Leader’s strange obsession with the Iowa Governor’s Conference on LGBTQ Youth is well-established. Last year, the socially conservative organization led by Bob Vander Plaats was so focused on getting Governor Terry Branstad to drop his affiliation with this conference that they were too “busy” to protest as the governor wined and dined the future Communist ruler of China (world leader in coerced abortions).

The FAMiLY Leader was at it again last week, throwing a fit over the 8th Annual Governor’s Conference on LGBTQ Youth scheduled for April 3. For this post, I don’t want to focus on the “ludicrous” concerns raised by people like Chuck Hurley (“Stop coming after my kids and other people’s kids with evil propaganda”). I don’t want to focus on how Branstad “ducked rather than draw fire from name-callers” with this weak response to the controversy.

Today I’m more interested in sixteen Republican lawmakers who showed their solidarity with the FAMiLY Leader by making an idiotic promise they can’t possibly keep.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Jennifer Jacobs’ latest piece speculating on GOP candidates for Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat includes a classic comment from former Mitt Romney strategist and marriage equality supporter David Kochel: “When I hear names like Steve Deace and Bob Vander Plaats for Senate, it reminds me of the bar scene in ‘Star Wars.'”

Jacobs also mentioned one name I hadn’t heard before in this context: State Senator Mark Chelgren. He is up for re-election in the Democratic-leaning Ottumwa area next year, so he would have to give up his Iowa Senate seat in order to seek the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate.

This week an anonymous group calling itself “Iowa Republicans for Truth” declared war against The Iowa Republican blog and its publisher, Craig Robinson. More details are after the jump. I enjoyed the Iowa .Gif-t Shop’s take on the kerfuffle.

UPDATE: In the comments, Bleeding Heartland user conservative demo mentioned Ed Tibbetts’ piece for the Quad-City Times on the battle brewing inside the Scott County Republican Party. I’ve added excerpts below.  

As Republicans in Iowa and across the country ponder how to improve their chances in the next presidential election, bashing the Ames straw poll is all the rage.

Most strategists and politicians recognize that the Republican Party of Iowa needs to dump or radically reinvent its largest pre-caucus fundraiser, traditionally held during the August before the Iowa caucuses. But a few people can’t read the writing on the wall.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? Many Republicans have been pondering what their party needs to do to win the next presidential election.

The second “No Wiggins” television commercial hit Iowa television screens on October 26, featuring an “Iowa mom” who happens to be Iowa’s new Republican National Committeewoman. The video, transcript, and related news clips are after the jump. Bleeding Heartland covered the first “No Wiggins” ad here.